Sharvie said, “We can open a comm to him if we want.”
Harris stopped. “What? When did this happen?”
Sharvie shrugged. “Has always been. Just ask Alex to open a wormhole comm to there and you can connect. No different than what the AI has been doing to gather intel on Domicile and New Earth.”
Tawn rolled her eyes. “How long have we been here and we’re just now thinking of that?”
Harris said, “Sharvie, go see if you can make that happen. Have it connect to us through Farker.”
Sharvie nodded and headed for the bunker door.
Harris crossed his arms. “People, this is the thing we have these brainstorming sessions for, the easy answers. Now why didn’t we come up with this before?”
Tawn said, “‘Cause we’re slow like you?”
Harris nodded. “Exactly. No… wait. Yeah, I guess that sums it up. Anyway, what other low hanging fruit have we neglected to pick?”
“If we need to talk to Mr. Morgan we could do the same,” said Trish.
Tawn huffed. “Why would we talk to him? He’s a DDI collaborator.”
Harris said, “Because we are both still on the same side. OK, if we need anything technical for repairs or whatnot, Bannis might be our man. What else?”
The chime of a comm came through.
Harris answered. “Colonel?”
The colonel replied, “Where are you?”
Harris asked Farker to initiate his hologram display and to feed the colonel’s video image to it. A barely visible face floated just above the dog.
Harris said, “We’re safe, although we’re no longer welcome on Domicile. It appears our prior connections to the DDI were phony. Those agents were actually from New Earth. The real DDI showed up with some demands and we kind of messed things up and had to run. What’s your status there?”
“Six days of food left. That’s with rationing. Don’t suppose you could get any to us?”
Harris shook his head. “We don’t have any way of getting around the Earthers.”
“How is it you’re getting this comm here?”
“It’s just a wormhole comm.”
The colonel shook his head. “That means they are listening to us. Otherwise they would be jamming all comms. Especially our frequencies. Also probably means they know where you are.”
The comm shut down.
Sharvie emerged from the bunker only seconds later. “They almost had us. Broke through three firewalls before I realized they were even trying. Had they made it through the fourth, I wouldn’t have been able to close the comm. They could have snooped their way around every system in there, and maybe even triggered an automatic shutdown of the boson field.”
Harris asked, “Is there a way we can open that comm securely? We could use the colonel’s help with ideas.”
“I can’t do it from here, but my friends could. That would mean giving them full access to everything in there though.”
Tawn said, “We can’t risk that.”
Harris rubbed the back of his neck. “I agree. Any way to get their help without compromising the whole place?”
Sharvie shrugged. “I’ll have to ask Alex. I do know a few things I could do to help with security, but those are only on the alert end. Blocking is a whole different beast. On a high note, it looks like we have about forty seconds of talk before they get through the third firewall. We could talk for that length of time and then disconnect before they get inside. Cracking those firewalls should take just as long a second time as it did the first.”
Harris said, “Set up your alerts and punch us back through to the colonel. I’ll tell him the situation, then we’ll cut the comm and do it all over again.”
Sharvie said, “Well, I did say it should take just as long. I might limit our time to half that just to be safe. I am only a handful of years into all this cyber stuff. Would feel better if I had my people available to discuss it with.”
“Then let’s go back in and open a comm to Domicile. Talk to your people. If they give a green light, we comm the colonel back.”
Sharvie headed into the bunker.
Tawn stood and stretched.
“I think I’ll go for a run. Might clear my brain. And I could sure use the exercise.”
“Enjoy yourself. I’ll be stretching out here on the lawn.”
Ten minutes passed before Sharvie emerged. “They said don’t do it. Second time in they would blast through those firewalls. We might have all of five seconds. For a reset of those times you would want a different system altogether.”
“Can you add more layers of security?”
“Alex is exploring that right now. He’s not sure when he will have an answer. As part of his investigation he’s contacting Domicile to scan document libraries for modern cyber-security methods and practices. I asked him to also look for any hardware upgrades we could make to his system that he might benefit from. The stuff that system is built on is almost two thousand years old. Perfectly maintained, but ancient.”
Tawn returned from her run.
Harris asked, “So what’s your breakthrough?”
“What?”
“You said a run was gonna clear your mind. Anything shake out from that?”
“Other than I’m probably in the worst shape of my life… no.”
Alex opened a comm to Sharvie through Farker. “I believe I have a temporary solution, although I will have to cease all other operations to maintain vigil on access firewalls. I can construct software firewalls where each must be broken through before the next will be accessed.
“Unfortunately the monitoring necessary for this approach will consume large amounts of my processing power. In turn, speech conversion over the comm may experience delays of as much as three seconds. Conversations at times may sound broken.”
Sharvie asked, “How long can you maintain that connection before we have to cut away?”
“Potentially several minutes, but as few as fifteen seconds. It depends on the skill and the speed of the New Earth technology we have to deal with. I would suggest making a list of requests so no time is spent on coming up with things to ask.”
The group pushed questions back and forth for several minutes before a list of five emerged. Harris gave the go-ahead for Sharvie to initiate the comm.
Gandy said, “Hope this works and the colonel has something for us to try.”
Tawn replied, “If we get a chance, we should go back and see if the Earthers are trying to rebuild the Rumford Mine.”
Harris crossed his arms as he shook his head. “We won’t have a ship to follow behind this time if we do.”
“No, but it’s a stationary target. We can shoot at it from farther away.”
Trish said, “Not that far away. Anything we shoot from orbit will burn up before it makes it to the ground.”
“Well, maybe we follow the lead of the Earthers and push an asteroid at it. Just need one big enough to make it to the surface.”
Harris nodded. “Might not be a bad idea. Maybe Alex can run the numbers for us for that.”
The comm chirped to life. “Colonel, Harris again. Sorry we got cut short. I have five questions to ask. With good answers we might be on our way to a solution to some of your problems.”
“Not gonna happen right now, Harris. The Earthers are attacking in force on the ground. Been sniping our lookouts for a week. Managed to come in force with little notice. Don’t know if we’ll be able to hold them off this time. We’re looking at thousands of hardcore regulars. I’ll have to catch you up later.”
The comm closed.
Harris looked around at the others in disbelief before turning toward the Bangor in a run.
“We have to get out there now! Call Sharvie in! We have to get moving!”
“Tawn followed, hustling past and into the copilot’s chair. “Not what I was expecting to hear.”
Harris sat as the ship’s systems came to life one by one. Sharvie ran from the bunker, breathing heavily as
she jumped up into the cabin. Gandy closed the hatch and the Bangor rocketed skyward, friction flames bursting from its forward surfaces as it accelerated.
The ride to free space, followed by a jump and then the run toward the planet, would take most of ninety minutes.
~~~~~
Once again, this Human is asking for your help! If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on the site where it was purchased or downloaded. And by all means, please tell your friends! Any help with spreading the word is highly appreciated!
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Stephen
ARMS Harris' Revenge Page 27
